


call it a necessary evil

by elizajumel



Category: 18th Century CE RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:11:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24463954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizajumel/pseuds/elizajumel
Summary: Burr laughed in his face. Hamilton wanted to scream. “Always running from your ugly appetites and flinging them onto other people as accusations—like that absolves you. We should have switched places in life. You would have made a good little Puritan.” He pressed closer, and Hamilton’s knees almost buckled, feeling himself harden further, involuntarily, against him. “We’re the same, you and I.” [Election of 1800]
Relationships: Aaron Burr/Alexander Hamilton
Comments: 4
Kudos: 60





	call it a necessary evil

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ghostburr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostburr/gifts).



A wild storm had cleared the streets the night before, and left them steaming. The thin sheen of sulfur had Hamilton pulling his sleeve over his nose as he paced. “Bad omen,” he muttered. Alone for the first time all day, he took the scrap of paper from his pocket and unfolded it, curled and creased from frequent examination. As though reading the names again would change them.

He recalled hearing from a friend, who heard it from a friend, what his rival had said when presented with Hamilton’s own slate for the assembly. He could picture the scene perfectly: the dark-haired man, uniformed in pristine black silk, surrounded by aides and admirers, perusing the list—and, though this part was not narrated to Hamilton, he did not doubt that the colonel’s arched brows flicked up in minute surprise, that the full mouth pursed with quiet humor—before slipping it into his own pocket. And saying to his fawning, assembled intimates—Hamilton crumpled the scrap in his fist, abruptly furious— _Now I have him all hollow_.

Hamilton’s head pounded. The pressure came from his jaw, he realized, clenched so tight it was a wonder his teeth hadn’t shattered. He took one long breath, another, forced the muscles to release. The road before him was empty, streetlights flinging their madly flickering shadows across the flagstones, and he spoke to them. “Don’t let him get the better of you, Alexander.”

It was too late. He felt his teeth grind together again.

“Is that you, General?”

Hamilton swore and tripped over an uneven stone. Burr caught him by the arm. His broad smile flashed in the relative dark of the street. Hamilton felt the obnoxious urge to cover his eyes.

“I thought I recognized your voice,” Burr says, and before Hamilton can finish thinking, _Christ, let him not have heard what I was saying_ , he continues, “But more than that, your gait and figure. Mumbling to yourself while pacing the same block a hundred times—I would have known you anywhere. It brought me back to our Elizabethtown days, when you used to skulk around that old cemetery, reciting Cicero.”

Before Hamilton could stop him, the colonel linked their arms together and nudged him forward. Hamilton eyed the pale hand resting on his forearm as they strolled through the shadows. Burr was always overly familiar, particularly—Hamilton suspected, but could never be sure—with him. He found himself focused on the hand, barely responding to the other man’s pleasantries.

It was a solid tactic, to be sure—stealing his concentration whenever he most needed it. If, Hamilton thought acerbically, you didn’t mind insinuating yourself into any respectable situation like the snake into Eden. Burr’s lingering smiles and touches held about as much subtlety as a barmaid leaning over in a low-cut bustier, angling for tips.

“This blasted electioneering,” Burr said with seeming relish, and Hamilton startled. “Unseemly business.”

“You seem to be enjoying yourself.”

The colonel ignored his incredulity. “And you.”

Hamilton scowled. “Where are we _going?_ It’s nearly midnight.”

“I thought I would find you prowling the streets around where we met this afternoon. I ran into Mr. Troup on his way home—he hadn’t eaten in three days, he said.”

“Nor I,” Hamilton said shortly.

“I wagered as much,” Burr replied. “So I came to find you, my friend, and see you fed and watered before another full day of speeches and sub-committees. I can hardly have my fondest companion on the campaign trail keeling over from malnutrition. We put on quite a good show for them today, didn’t we?”

“A _show_?” Hamilton jerked his arm out of the other man’s grasp, and made to storm off. He felt Burr’s hand seize the sleeve of his shirt and halted, staring at him in shock. “This is all a game to you.”

“And what is it to you, _General_?” Burr relinquished his sleeve but slid his hand down Hamilton’s arm and held his wrist, turning it from side to side, curiously examining the ink-stains. _Let go of me_ — Hamilton meant to say, but the soft press of the other man’s thumb to his pulse arrested him. “If not one grand game to be played, with squadrons and commanders to lead them? I heard it said by a wise man”—and though Hamilton held himself rigid, a safe distance between their faces, Burr’s voice seemed to emanate right in his ear—“that in politics, as in war, the first blow is half the battle.”

“Then you’ve won already,” Hamilton spat, pulling his arm away. “And if you truly think yourself a friend, you would not find me after hours to torture me with your imminent triumph.”

Burr’s brow furrowed. As though genuinely concerned for his well-being, Hamilton thought with derision. “General Hamilton, I only meant—”

“You meant to distract and humiliate me. I think you’ve done enough of that today. I am _tired_ , and I need to sleep—I need—” Hamilton stumbled, over his words and the smooth-worn flagstones, his boots unable to find purchase. He suddenly felt drained, like he might lie down in the street and expire, or at least slip into a heavenly unconsciousness.

Burr took his arm again, and this time, Hamilton made no protest. “Please, General, let me walk you. My home is only a few minutes from here, and I have refreshments, and extra mattresses set out. A few of my associates might be about, but we should have relative privacy.”

“Don’t need _that_ ,” Hamilton muttered, but allowed the other man to steer him toward Richmond Hill. “Dangerous.”

He couldn’t see but heard the smile in the colonel’s voice. “Me, General?”

Hamilton refused to dignify that with a response, focused on putting one foot in front of the other. “My wife is expecting me.”

“Surely she’s gone to bed by now, General. And if you prefer, we can send you on your way uptown after you’ve eaten.”

“Brimstone,” Hamilton murmured, staring at the slick ground beneath his feet. “I should have known.”

Burr laughed, delighted. “You’re delirious, Mr. Hamilton.”

“Could a delirious man do _this_?” Hamilton aimed his free hand at Burr’s face in an accusatory point and was dismayed to see it shaking. He felt giddy—his exhaustion had passed through lucid fury into punch-drunk territory. “Oh, to hell with it. Take me to your lair.”

“My _lair_?” Burr chuckled again, leading him up the set of stairs to the ornate entrance way. “Would that my life were half as exciting as you make it sound.”

Hamilton leaned on the other man’s arm as they passed through several rooms—strewn with sleeping pads, unmade, and some tables spread with maps and papers, others with covered dishes. “Sit,” Burr directed, pressing him into a chair. “And no snooping.”

Hamilton, who had indeed allowed his eyes to skim over the mass of information laid out before him, gasped and put a hand over his heart. “Is that how little you think of me, Colonel? That I would repay your kindness with espionage?”

“Well, you _have_ penetrated the heart of enemy territory,” Burr said dryly, filling a plate with food from a table in the corner. “I would expect you to at least be tempted.”

“Only with your invitation,” Hamilton said without thinking, and covered his mouth. “I meant—”

“Oh, you meant what you said. You always do,” Burr said, sitting down across from him and sliding the plate to him. “One of the things I like most about you, I’ll admit. But _penetration_ jokes, General? Are we in college again?”

Hamilton opened his mouth to retort, then closed it, picking up a slice of bread. He felt oddly at ease, in this comfortable house, with Burr looking at him with a smile on his lips and those expressive brows lifted, anticipatory, as though they were back in the alehouse in Elizabethtown and Hamilton were about to tell an extraordinary joke, or stand up on the table and sing. He ate, and Burr watched him eat, and cleared the maps from the table, and stoked the fire, without his eyes ever seeming to leave him.

“It’s all cold, I’m afraid.”

“It’s excellent.” Hamilton smiled at him, feeling more generous with food in his stomach again. “My God, it’s been so long.”

Burr returned the smile, settling back into his chair. “You ought to take better care of yourself, little Hamilton. How long has it been since you slept?”

“I—well…” Hamilton dropped his chin to his hand. “For more than an hour or two at a time? I truly couldn’t recall.”

“I could tell, when I came upon you tonight. You sounded like a deranged street preacher.”

“How are _you_ so energetic?” Hamilton fired back. “Surely you’ve slept no more than I have.”

Burr shrugged. “Adrenaline, I suppose. It keeps the wind in my sails. And my young aides have far more energy than I. At least one of them reminds me to eat every few hours.”

“Where are they?” Hamilton craned his neck to look around the room, as though a stray Burrite might pop out from behind the curtains.

“Gone to their own homes, or to drink off the day’s work,” the other man said, shrugging again. “Oh—how thoughtless of me. Would you like something to drink, general?”

“Whatever you’re having.”

“Very well.” Burr stood and scooped up two stray wine glasses from the corner of the table where they had been used as paperweights. He shook a free finger in Hamilton’s face. “I will be back. _No snooping_.”

“My God,” Hamilton said, laughing, “and they say I’m the paranoid one.”

No response from Burr. He pushed the empty plate away and stood, hands clasped behind his back, surveying the room. “So it is just you, all alone in this great house,” he called.

“Just me,” came the other man’s voice.

“Your daughter, how is she doing?”

“Visiting friends. I write to her often, on the election progress.”

Hamilton recalled Theodosia, dark-haired and dark-eyed like her father, with the same impenetrable composure—stranger on one so young. She had always cut a solemn figure beside his own Angelica, who laughed and prattled on as easily as the birds she loved. “She is doing well and healthy, I hope.”

“Yes, God willing,” Burr said, returning to the room with two full glasses and a bottle in hand. He gave one glass to Hamilton. “Soon, I fear, she will marry and leave me. All alone in this great house.”

Hamilton accepted the drink and studied him. Burr always appeared so sanguine that any shadow of sadness or insecurity almost read false—a play for sympathy, Hamilton’s more cynical mind suggested. But the colonel’s brow was creased along familiar lines, and Hamilton recalled, too, the young man who had spoken in such heavy tones about the future in their first meeting—suppressed the urge, as he had then, to reach up and smooth it out with his fingers.

 _The ministry_ , his new friend had intoned, and Hamilton—eager, naïve, enthralled with everything this boy before him represented: a first-rate education and an unassailable family—had taken his hands in his own. Felt, as he had every time since, the spark in his chest and, lower, the tug in his stomach. _Tradition holds you tenderly in her arms. You will always be safe from harm, I believe, little Burr._

Hamilton swallowed, guilt climbing up his throat unexpectedly. Phrases from letters that had flowed from his pen in an eloquent rage—birthed during walks such as he had been on when Burr had interrupted him tonight—resounded against the walls of his mind in mocking whispers: embryo-Caesar, American Catiline. _Harm. I have done him harm._

But no. It is all for the public, Hamilton told the whispering voices. _I alone know him well enough._ The other man was his responsibility. Had been, in some strange way, since their first meeting, back when Hamilton had felt the need to reassure him.

He became aware of Burr’s interested gaze, perhaps seeing this sequence of emotion play out across his face. Flushing, he looked down into his glass. “A toast,” he said quickly.

“A toast,” Burr agreed. A point in his favor, Hamilton thought—it was never in his nature to pry. “To…”

Hamilton pressed his lips together, considering. “To a good night’s sleep, after this,” he offered.

Burr laughed, clinking their glasses together. “By God, I’ll drink to that.”

Hamilton tilted his head back and let the dark wine fall into his mouth. The familiar spread of heat made him feel looser, and he sank down in his seat. “Oh, that’s _good,_ Colonel.”

“The best,” Burr said, setting his glass down. “Feeling better, then?”

“Yes, much better. I appreciate your hospitality.”

“It was the least I could do. You led me on such a _very_ merry chase this afternoon.”

Hamilton laughed into his glass. “You’re not _following_ me around the city, now, are you?”

“Hardly, General, I have my own plans. Though we do seem to favor the same street corners,” Burr said, holding his hands up. “Purely coincidence, I assure you. I actually meant with your words—it is always like tracking one’s way through a maze, trying to follow your rhapsodic phrasing and serpentine logic.”

“ _Serpentine_ —” Not for the first time, Hamilton wondered if the other man could read minds. “You call _me_ the snake among us—”

“It was _one word_ , General, one word—poorly chosen, if you must console yourself—no need to get hung up on semantics. We are having a good time, here.”

“Fine.” Hamilton thrust the glass toward him. “Top me off, then, if I have to sit here and endure your sloppy rhetoric.”

Burr obliged, filling his glass to the brim. “You ass,” Hamilton objected, “not _that_ full, how am I supposed to—”

“Carefully,” Burr said, barely containing a smile. Glaring at him, Hamilton brought the glass to his face inch by precarious inch, wary of spilling. He pursed his lips to sip from the surface, and the other man burst out laughing.

“ _You_ —” Hamilton couldn’t help but laugh too, and his hand shook, dark droplets flying off the rim. “Oh—your carpet—”

“Don’t worry about it, General, it was worth it just to see you make that face—”

“You _scoundrel_ ,” Hamilton said, grinning, “inviting me into your home, plying me with food and drink, just to make a mockery of me—”

“ _Fighting words, sir_ —”

Hamilton became aware that the glass was still jostling in his hand, spilling wine all over the seat and his breeches. “Shit!”

Burr snorted, and threw back the rest of his drink. “That’s quite a mess you’ve made.”

“It was your fault! You admitted as much.” Hamilton stood, scrubbing futilely at the stains on his pants. “I need—a change of clothes. And—more wine.”

“The man accuses me of sabotage, calls my home a lair, spills the good Madeira all over my furniture, and has the gall to blame me for the damage and drink me dry,” Burr said, standing up with him. “Very well. Come upstairs with me, I’ll lend you some clothes. But no more wine. You should sleep.”

“ _We_ should sleep,” Hamilton said, swiping the bottle as Burr pulled him along toward the stairs. “I do not know what otherworldly forces you make sacrifices to in order to work so much on so little rest, but I will not have us on an unequal playing field because your daring knows no bounds.”

The other man rolled his eyes as they ascended the steps. “I’m an occultist now too, am I?”

“You are _entirely_ profligate. Look at you letting me spill wine all over your nice chair without a drop of concern. Like you have coin in the bank to buy fifty more.”

“That is called being a _good friend,_ Mr. Hamilton. I invited you into my house in your half-crazed state, I was prepared to accept the potential consequences.”

They arrived at the master bedroom, and Burr deposited Hamilton on the floor by the wardrobe. “No more chairs for you. Stay put.”

“Yes, sir,” Hamilton said sarcastically, looking around without trying to disguise his curiosity. The room was—as expected—well furnished, with red damask drapes hung over the windows and around the bed. He peered at his own reflection in the full-length mirror beside the wardrobe: flushed, hair wild and untamed from his earlier walk, cravat loosened; he must have done so unconsciously since entering the house, feeling comfortable here. He looked— Hamilton blushed, and the face in the mirror reddened with him.

Burr tossed an armful of fabric at him. Hamilton picked up each article in turn: a linen shirt, a robe, and a set of sheets. “For whichever mattress you choose downstairs. And we are the same size, I believe.”

“Thank you.” Hamilton struggled halfway to his feet, then sat down again. “Oddly enough, I am not sleepy anymore.”

Burr rolled his eyes, settling down on the floor beside him. “You’re _beyond_ sleepy, General. Your body does not even recognize its need for sleep because it has gone unfulfilled for so long. I know that feeling.”

“Yes, you would, wouldn’t you?” Hamilton offered him the bottle. Begrudgingly, Burr took it, and Hamilton grinned. “Madison used to tell me about your Princeton days. Your capacity to shift between twenty-hour work days and utter indolence was legendary.”

Burr drank straight from the bottle. “I’ll tell you straight, General, I was a real shit in my Princeton days. Thought I owned the whole world and would do as I pleased.”

“Not much has changed, then,” Hamilton said, tugging at the bottle in his hands.

Burr let him take it. “And you, little Hamilton?”

“I don’t know that I’ve changed. Do you think so?” Hamilton took a long drink and set the bottle down between them, meeting his eyes. “You’ve known me—well, I dare say you’ve known me longer than almost anyone else in this country.”

He felt Burr consider him, the familiar pressure of his gaze—friendly, solid, probing. An edge to it tonight, one with which Hamilton was also not unfamiliar but that he never knew how to define. He bit his lip, resisting the urge to look away. “On the whole, the same,” Burr said finally, and took a swig from the bottle. “I am often surprised by you still, but I attribute that to more layers revealing themselves, and not something entirely new in your character.”

Hamilton frowned, unsure how to respond to that. “I’m not sure how to respond to that,” he said aloud, then dropped his forehead into his hands. “Fuck. I am _drunk_.”

“I couldn’t tell,” Burr said, looking more amused. “Change and go downstairs. I will get you some water.”

Hamilton ignored him. “Why can’t it always be like this, Burr?”

Burr’s smile shifted into something unreadable. “General?”

“Like this,” Hamilton repeated stupidly, gesturing with his hands as he spoke, rushed and stilted. “You and I. Drinking. Talking. As we did when we were young. Before the election, and the other elections, the war, all of it.”

The other man’s reticence was palpable; Hamilton looked sidelong at him. “I know things have changed,” Burr said slowly, after a long moment. “I know we used to enjoy each other’s company more often, with fewer…complications. And…I must say, General, I do not believe this change was my fault.”

His last words landed like a stone. Hamilton blinked faster, felt his heart start to race. The words came out faster now, unchecked. “Whose fault is it then? Mine? _I_ did not run to unseat my father-in-law. _I_ did not steal the words from my colleague’s mouth to embarrass him in court— _I_ did not slip a clause into the charter of a water company to start a _bank_ —”

“My _God_ , it’s always the same with you,” Burr snapped. “I’m not talking about politics, General, we were _friends_ , first. Or does that no longer matter, when you gain more benefit from cultivating whispers against me than from my friendship?”

“We could have kept being friends—”

Burr scoffed. “You didn’t want friends, you wanted sycophants.” Hamilton opened his mouth to retort, and the other man held a finger to his lips. “I’m _sorry_ , General—is that what you wanted to hear? I’m sorry that I never debased myself sufficiently to serve under you. If you didn’t hold yourself to be unequalled by any other man on the national stage, you might have been able to admit that I was the only one who could ever keep up with you.” Burr’s mouth curled in a sneer. “Or was it the other way around? Little Hamilton, always racing to catch up, riding greater men’s coattails—”

Hamilton shoved Burr’s hand away from his face. “Shut up. _Shut up_. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You think _I’m_ arrogant—you—” Words, as they only ever did when faced with this man, failed him, and he followed his instincts, pushing Burr away from him with both palms. Burr staggered back onto his elbows, knocking over the bottle. Dark liquid poured forth, soaking the carpet like blood.

Hamilton stared at the growing stain, hands stinging where they had made contact with the other man’s chest. He felt Burr’s eyes on him, harder, the unidentifiable edge in them like steel. The conversation had soured so quickly—Hamilton traced it back in his immediate memory to his own rash outpouring, and quelled the remorse that rose in his throat. Backing down was impossible—unthinkable—under Burr’s cold, angry gaze. His exhaustion had not cleared from his mind, but drove him onward, recklessly, obscuring the consequences.

The insults felt _good_ , sickeningly so, as he hurled them toward the man who stood less than a foot away from him now, the air between them crackling.

“You were always selfish and spoiled, uncommitted to any cause but your own pleasure, prouder than your talents warranted, relying on a name you didn’t even care for to make your way in the world—”

“And you,” Burr cut him off, with an iciness that slid straight through Hamilton’s center like a whetted knife, “will always be a jealous, petty outsider, draining everything you can from the people you convince to care about you and discarding them when they are no longer useful to you—me—your so-called friends—your wife—”

“ _Don’t you dare talk about my wife_ —” Hamilton’s vision flashed blank and unseeing, then redder than the wine stain from the overturned bottle by their feet. His hands shook; he longed to pick it up and smash it against the other man’s head, to wrap his hands around his neck and choke him silent, anything to stop the outpouring. Of their own volition, his trembling fingers found a hold on Burr’s cravat and yanked him close, their bodies flush. He could smell the wine on his breath.

They should stop. _He_ should stop this. They were drunk. There were lines that had not yet been crossed.

Vivid images of those lines flashed through his mind as he processed, in parts, the other man’s body against his; as they had—he tightened his grip with the admission—more than once before: Burr’s immaculate silk waistcoat, now surely creased where their chests were pressed together; Burr’s dark, powdered curls come loose from their queue; Burr’s exhale, a surprisingly soft movement of air against his mouth, the only thing that seemed to move in that eternal moment of stillness; they were in fact, Hamilton realized, precisely the same size—and he made his decision. He kissed him. Burr’s mouth opened immediately under his, and Hamilton pulled him closer, impossibly close, feeling the lace of the cravat tear between his fingers.

The other man reared his head back, shaking him off. His pupils were blown wide, and up close, Hamilton saw for the first time, they were rimmed not by black, but hazel. They stared at each other for a moment, chests heaving.

Then Burr’s face split in a grin. The eyes, widened in shock a second before, narrowed meanly. “I should have known,” he said, echoing Hamilton’s words of an hour—a lifetime—ago. “You are _depraved_. Is this how you got ahead, little Hamilton? Another weapon in your arsenal—one you must have put to _excellent_ use during the war—”

Hamilton slapped him, the crack reverberating in the otherwise silent room. His hand stung, but he hardly felt it, watching the pale cheek blotch an ugly crimson. “ _Shut your fucking mouth_.”

Burr’s sleeve flashed in his vision, and then the other man backhanded him so hard Hamilton saw stars and tasted metal. He brought a hand to his cheek slowly, and it came away wet and red where the skin had split. His head spun.

Burr cocked his head to one side, surveying the damage with satisfaction. _Your move_ , his stance seemed to say. Hamilton’s whole body shook; he felt he might shatter on contact. He scanned the other man, from the smug twist of his lips to the tangled shreds of his cravat, his bloodied knuckles, and down, lower, the hardness unmistakable through his breeches.

White-hot shock flashed through Hamilton’s body, and he grabbed the back of the other man’s head, fisting his hands in his hair. “You— _I’m_ depraved—”

Burr laughed in his face. Hamilton wanted to scream. “Always running from your ugly appetites and flinging them onto other people as accusations—like that absolves you. We should have switched places in life. You would have made a good little Puritan.” He pressed closer, and Hamilton’s knees almost buckled, feeling himself harden further, involuntarily, against him. “We’re the same, you and I.”

“We are _nothing_ alike,” Hamilton snarled, yanking his head back. Burr gasped for air, his long, pale neck exposed, and Hamilton bent down to kiss it. The other man let out a soft moan, and Hamilton grinned wildly against his neck, let his teeth graze against the sensitive vein, wanting more of those sounds—perfect, indomitable, pureblooded Burr coming apart under his mouth. He wanted to know how completely he could undo the man.

He loosened his grip on Burr’s hair and let his hands wander, tracing the lines of his chest and shoulders. Burr shuddered as he drew a fingertip down from the base of his neck to the small of his back. “Alexander—”

Oh, _yes_ , he liked that. “Fuck,” he blurted out, and drew the other man in for a kiss, tasting his split lip. Burr’s hands were more insistent now, as though sensing his momentary weakness, pushing him back toward the bed. Hamilton landed with a thump on the silk sheets. Burr loomed over him, lithe in stillness like a predatory animal.

“Pretty little Hamilton,” he said, nearly cooed, as his hands slid up the sides of Hamilton’s stained breeches, thumbs skimming along his inner thighs. Hamilton arched off the bed, aching for contact, but Burr’s hands settled on his hips, pushing him down.

“We’re in my house, little Hamilton. We play by my rules.”

Hamilton bit his lip to keep from moaning at the hard press of Burr’s hands, holding him to the bed. The other man noticed. “You love this, don’t you? Being forced—it makes you feel less guilty. So that when you go back to your good wife and your house full of children, you can convince yourself it was me who lured and misled you into breaking your vows.” Burr laughed harshly. “So be it. I’ve long resigned myself to taking what little I can get from you.”

“What _do_ you want, then?” Hamilton spit at him.

Burr leaned forward, the full weight of his body settling onto Hamilton’s. “I want you _utterly_ debauched. Desperate for everything you know I can provide for you—that _only_ I can provide—and completely at my mercy. I want you to shut your miserably _insufferable_ mouth for once, and then I want to hear every pretty bit of praise you can come up with while I fuck you until you can’t remember your own name.”

Hamilton couldn’t help it—his body jerked of its own volition, grinding up against the other man’s. Burr matched the drag of his hips, grinning down at him wild and bloodied. “Do you like that, then?” Thin fingers wrapped around his throat. “Tell me.”

Holding his gaze, Hamilton felt his own mad smile grow. He arched against the other man’s grip. Burr’s eyes flashed. “ _Tell me_ ,” he demanded again, pressing harder.

Hamilton coughed and gasped. The pain was exquisite—his lungs screamed, his muscles clenched. He felt Burr’s fingers close in tighter still. His last shred of sensible thought: that this imperturbable man had enough rage in him to really hurt him, to watch Hamilton flail and struggle for breath. That he had walked into his house and shared his wine; it was always leading up to this. “ _Yes_ ,” he ground out, forcing the sound from his strained vocal cords.

Burr’s hand eased around his neck, but only just. “Oh, you’ll have to do better than that. Where’s the man who can fill page after page with my faults? I want _details_ , General.”

Hamilton grabbed his wrist and held it tighter to his throat. “You want details?” he hissed. “I’ve imagined this so many times, you fucking me to put me in my place, I’ve _dreamed_ about it—”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Burr growled, hands pulling away from his neck and raking down the front of his waistcoat, stumbling over each fastening. Then his breeches and stockings, flung with the waistcoat toward the foot of the bed. Hamilton’s heart pummeled faster with each layer painstakingly removed, bringing those hands closer to his bare skin. Burr looked down at his shirt with a level of dismay that was almost comical. “Fuck, these _buttons_ —”

“Just tear it,” he heard himself urging, and Burr did, the sound of shredding fabric sending desire searing through Hamilton’s body. He pulled his arms from the sleeves and pushed the now-useless garment off the bed. He was naked now, and the other man still completely clothed.

“Beautiful,” Burr whispered. “Christ, look at you. All laid out for me.” Hamilton closed his eyes as the other man’s hands roved his body. Burr’s fingertips trailed along the inside of his thigh, the crease of his hip, unbearably close without providing any relief, and unbidden from his mouth, “Please—”

“Please?” Burr murmured. There were several answers he might have liked, Hamilton thought, but went with the one most immediate, the one he would have liked most himself, “Please, _sir_ —”

“ _Good_ ,” the other man breathed, “good soldier,” and Hamilton felt his cock harden at the praise despite himself. Burr’s hand curled around him, the sweet relief of it nearly bringing tears to his eyes. He wrapped his arms around the other man, crumpling the silk of his waistcoat between his fingers as Burr stroked him, pressed his mouth against Hamilton’s jaw and neck and behind his ear, surprisingly tender. He was so close already, strung taut and wired.

Burr’s hand stilled, and before he could protest, the other man was straddling his chest, unbuttoning his breeches. “Go on,” he said. “I know you love to show off. Show me how talented that mouth is.”

 _Well,_ then—Hamilton put his hands on the other man’s hips and took the whole of his cock at once, heard Burr swear incoherently and push harder into Hamilton’s mouth. His fingers threaded through Hamilton’s hair, holding his head in place. “God, you’re good at that,” Burr said, voice breaking from exertion as he increased his pace. “How did you get so good at sucking cock like a camp slut, little Hamilton?”

Hamilton didn’t answer—couldn’t—felt himself harden impossibly still as the other man fucked his mouth. Finally Burr released him, sitting back on his heels. Hamilton wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, holding his eyes. “What next, sir?”

Burr laughed, rich and dark, as he surveyed him in a way that would have made Hamilton feel naked if he weren’t already. “Turn over,” he said, and Hamilton complied, breathing in the dense scent of the silk sheets—wondered, briefly, how many others, men and women both, he’d had here.

Burr seemed to hear his thoughts. “I know you,” he murmured, and Hamilton hissed as cool, slick fingers pressed against his entrance. “I know you. You want to be the best of them, you have to work for it.” Hamilton groaned, gritted his teeth and pushed back against Burr’s fingers. The stretch hurt—it had been so long—and he dropped his head into the nearest pillow, panting hard.

“Easy,” the other man whispered. A soothing hand stroked up and down his back. “Don’t rush, Alexander. We have all night.”

“No,” Hamilton ground out. “No, I want you _now_.”

Burr’s hand came down on his ass with a hard slap. Hamilton cried out, more from the shock than the pain. “You could stand to learn some patience,” Burr said. Another slap, more punishing than the first. And on and on, as he fucked him open with two and then three fingers. Hamilton felt the oil dripping down the inside of his thighs, heard himself babbling, begging, turned his mind off so he wouldn’t have to hear it anymore, what Burr had reduced him to.

Without warning, Burr’s fingers slide out. Hamilton barely had time to register the loss of sensation before he felt the other man press into him, slow at first and then all too much at once. Burr’s hands curled into the hair at the base of his neck, forcing his face deeper into the pillow. Hamilton swallowed the blood in his mouth to keep from crying out, feeling the coarse drag of Burr’s breeches against his bare skin, the icy points of his cufflinks where he held Hamilton’s neck down.

“Is this what you imagined? What you dreamed about?”

“Harder,” Hamilton managed, turning his face to the side slightly, feeling his lips curl up in a manic grin. “I want it _harder._ Is that really the best you—” he broke off as Burr’s hips slammed against his in deep, staccato thrusts.

“Well, don’t stop there,” Burr drawled, pulling his head back by his hair. “Surely that’s not all the commentary you have. The man I know couldn’t shut up to save his life.”

The pace he set was brutal. Hamilton could barely think, let alone form words. He forced them out one at a time— _deeper, yes, there_ —and when Burr slowed long enough to turn them on their sides and fucked him like that, he kept up a running litany as best he could against the pressure of Burr’s arm wrapped around his neck, holding their bodies flush: thank you, sir, please, sir, fuck me, _fuck_ me. And when Burr’s free hand found his cock and stroked him off in time with his thrusts, Hamilton closed his eyes and pressed on the arm against his throat and said it like a prayer, Aaron, _Aaron_ , when he came. He felt his release push the other man toward his, heard the hitch in his throat, the _Alexander_ muffled against the back of his neck.

The two men lay still for a long moment, breathing hard in the hot, airless room. Hamilton felt the other man’s seed running down his leg, and suddenly the sensation turned his stomach the wrong way. “I have to—” he blurted, sitting up in the bed. “I have to go. I have to get out of here—where are my—”

Burr sat up, passing him the bundle of clothes at the foot of the bed. Hamilton felt the other man’s eyes on him as he dressed. Finally, quietly, “General, you don’t have to—it’s late, it wouldn’t be safe—”

“I’ll sleep in my office, it’s just a short walk,” Hamilton said. “Shit, I need—a shirt—”

Wordlessly, Burr went to the wardrobe and tossed him one. Hamilton finished dressing in silence. As he fastened his cravat, he considered leaving it for the other man—to replace the one he had left in tatters—but thought better of it. _And what would the good people of New York think, seeing their great republican hero wearing another man’s clothes?_

Burr’s hands grazed his waist, soft. “General, really, you don’t need to leave. There are plenty of beds downstairs.”

Hamilton whirled around to face him. “I am not going to sleep on one of the mattresses you leave out on the floor for your lackeys. I will see you tomorrow, and you will not look at me, or speak to me, or—or—insinuate yourself with me, ever again. Do I make myself clear?”

Burr backed away, holding his hands up. “On my honor as a gentleman,” he said, with a hint of _humor_.

Hamilton stared at him for a moment longer. His hands, treacherous, longed to grab the other man’s chin and make him swear it—swear on something more potent than his blasted honor—to push him back onto the bed and wrench a promise from him by force. _Just one more time_. “No,” he said aloud, to himself, and Burr’s face closed.

Hamilton nodded. “Tomorrow,” he repeated, and left the room before he could change his mind. His cheek stung, and he put his hand to it, wincing when it came away rust red. He wondered what he would tell Eliza—if he even saw her again before the election was over—or Troup, who would meet him at the office in a few short hours and see him bloodied and disheveled.

He walked out into the balmy night and let the heavy door slam behind him, shook a handkerchief from his pocket and held it to his cheek as he walked quickly toward the office. A few hours of sleep, he promised himself, and it would all seem like a dream—albeit one he’d had too many times before.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Rationale's "Oil and Water."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [lacking in emotion](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24464266) by [ghostburr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostburr/pseuds/ghostburr)




End file.
